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Death in a White Tie (Roderick Alleyn, #7)

Ngaio Marsh

Start date: July 1, 2023

Finish date: August 7, 2023

Discussion: Group reads

Why we're reading this: Winner of the poll for our July group read - one of Marsh's best!…more
[close] Winner of the poll for our July group read - one of Marsh's best!

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Group reads

* VOTE NOW for November 2025 group read!
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last updated 17 hours, 1 min ago

* Sept 25: Lonesome Road (#3 Miss Silver Mysteries) by Patricia Wentworth
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last updated Sep 03, 2025 12:03PM

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What Members Thought

Nov 03, 2018 Adrian rated it really liked it

Shelves: det-ngaio-marsh, zz-paper-books, detectives-challenge-nm-2018

Rating and review to follow tonight. Was good though 😊

And now it is tonight, so....

Right, now for some reason I have fallen out of love with Roderick Alleyn, I was keeping up well with the challenge for the first 6 months then for some reason it has taken me another 4 months to get to number 7, and I don't know why.
This was really good and I thoroughly enjoyed both the story and the characterisations, but, and there is a but, to me it is not Agatha Christie. So despite this being well written, d ...more

50 likes · Like · see review

Jul 06, 2018 Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-murder-crime-20th-century, aotearoa-authors

4.5★

When I reread Death at the Dolphin I'll be interested to see how this earlier title compares. Death at the Dolphin was my favourite as a young reader, but this title was a first time read for me & this now feels like my favourite Marsh novel.

The main reason is it is a good story, well told & Marsh seems to have some understanding of the world of debutantes. I know back in the 60s/70s New Zealand had a debutante system as my four sister-in-laws were debutantes. So possibly Marsh grew up under ...more

45 likes · Like · see review

Apr 25, 2022 John rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ngaio-marsh

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

12 likes · Like · see review

Aug 07, 2021 Tania rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery

I've read several of Ngaio Marsh's early books, and while I have liked them I haven't loved them; I have always felt that there was a better book lurking underneath, and this is it. I feel with this one she has got into her stride.

Debutantes and their chaperones are heading to London for the season, but there is a blackmailer at work in their midst. Alleyn asks one of his friends to keep an eye out and see if he can find the culprit, but unfortunately, he ends up dead in a taxi and it's Alleyn's ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Oct 13, 2018 Sahifa rated it really liked it

Shelves: ngaio-marsh-challenge

"Death in a White Tie" was july read towards the Ngaio Marsh challenge and I am a great deal behind schedule. I intend to speed up and get back on track asap and this book has really motivated me tremendously in doing so. Ngaio Marsh's writing is getting better and better with each passing book. This title can be considered as one of the finest pieces of work from Marsh.
The book is set in london but it also have glimpses of typical English country. The feel of the book ,the writing style, the pl ...more

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